Features

Publishers often send us books here at The Chronicle hoping for a review or feature story. Often, the books have little or nothing to do with the interests of the paper or our coverage area. “The Handy Boston Answer Book” is a good example; fun book but Boston is well outside our territory; I can only speculate that it arrived here because we're located in eastern Massachusetts.
So when “Bad Little Children's ...

Les Kovacs enjoys the "ease of working with these guys. It's a great group." Kovacs is in his seventh year as manager at P&B Shanty, tucked into bay 1 at 95 Commerce Park South, deep in the heart of the Chatham industrial park. On my first visit, I found the place partly by smell.
Bait on a hot day can't hide. It hits the nose first and unmistakably. Kovacs admits that it can be a "brutal environment." But...

“ They have to be told; it must be told.”
Arthur Kipps, a solicitor, feels an obligation to gather his family and friends to finally reveal a ghostly secret that has terrified him into silence for years. To add to the suspense and the importance of his story, Kipps decides to hire an actor and rent a theater as an unorthodox means to disclose all the details. What could be so important about his secret? Wha...

An old man enters a room that clearly overlooks a beautiful pond, he putters and mutters as he maneuvers around the sheet-covered furniture. There’s a knock at the door, and it startles him. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, you old poop!” yells the voice behind the door.
It’s Ethel Thayer, and the old man is Norman, her husband, a man only she can love. Their only daughter, Chelsea has had trouble loving him and ha...

References to speakeasies and bootleg whiskey bring to mind the dark nights, danger, speed and excitement of Prohibition-era rum-running off the coast of Cape Cod.
Rum-running will be the topic of a talk by Jeff Proctor of East Bridgewater at the Chatham Historical Society's Atwood House Museum this Sunday, Sept. 18.
“My talk will detail how Prohibition led to rum-running, a criminal phenomenon that turned ...

ORLEANS — As it's done for the past six years, the Orleans Pond Coalition is hosting its “Celebrate Our Waters Festival” this weekend, with more than 50 free walks, talks, sails and paddles.
The event takes place Friday through Sunday, and kicks off with an opening reception dubbed Smooth Jazz Under the Stars. Featuring Bart Weisman and his group, the event will include light appetizers, chowder, sandwiches ...

Mike Werbick’s lucky day came when a kidney donor was found for him. It happened to be his wife.
Now, with his life spared by the transplant on Sept. 15, 2015, he wants to give back. And that is why you’ll now find the Lucky Day Thrift Shop at 16 Route 28, West Harwich, just before the Dennisport line. It’s been open since the end of May.
The shop doesn’t operate on the donation-and-or-consignment model fam...

Some people don't enjoy talking about what they do for a living. Tom Daley, Director of Public Works for the Town of Orleans isn't one of them. He loves his job and he'll happily tell you why. It has just a little bit to do with the ability to get things done.
Since graduating from UMass Lowell in 1986 with a Civil Engineering degree, Daley has made it is goal to get things done, beginning with his first job w...

From Sept. 15 to Oct. 16, Cape Rep will present a ghostly tale which has left audiences breathless in London's West End since it opened in 1987, making it the second longest-running non-musical production in that district's history. Arthur Kipps, a middle-aged solicitor, is tormented by an episode from his past when he is visited by a terrifying figure in black while settling the estate of an elderly recluse...

From the profits of her two children’s books about her calico cat, Annie Patches, Chatham author Marty Koblish raised $500 for the Jimmy Fund and presented the check toward cancer care and research to the family of Emily Coughlin of Chatham.
Emily, now 11, will enter the sixth grade this fall. Six years ago she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare form of childhood cancer. At the age of 4, she began 18 mon...

Even in the information age, some books are still banned in parts of America. To shine a light on this, the American Library Association (ALA) forms an annual list of “the top 10 most frequently challenged books,” along with celebrating the freedom to read during their yearly “Banned Books Week,” which is coming up on Sept. 25.
Playwright Kenneth Jones brings to life the true-life censorship sto...

The Academy of Performing Arts has long produced Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Neil Simon’s large body of dramatic work, usually performing one of his plays a year. Last September it was the touching “Brighton Beach Memoirs;” this time it’s one of Simon’s lighter comedies, “Last of the Red Hot Lovers.”
Born in 1927, Simon has written over 30 plays and almost an equal number of screenplays (based m...